NEWS - The African Mirror

Jun

21

2023

Passport to Prosperity: Dangote touts visa-on-arrival regime to boost AfCFTA

NEWS

NIGERIAN business magnate Aliko Dangote is touting seamless mobility for Africans as a panacea for the sluggish adoption of the fledging African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Dangote made the proposal during a panel discussion at the ongoing 30th Afreximbank Annual Meetings in Accra, Ghana. "I think what, maybe, African countries need to do is that, why don't you give Africans visas on arrival that will facilitate trade?" Dangote suggested, throwing light on the current cumbersome visa processes that often hinder intra-African business endeavours. His sentiments come as African states, especially the smallest ones, are liberalising travel requirements, indicating a…

Jun

21

2023

By The African Mirror

International donors pledge $1.5 billion in Sudan aid

NEWS

GABRIELLE TÉTRAULT-FARBER, EMMA FARGE and KHALID ABDELAZIZ INTERNATIONAL donors made pledges of close to $1.5 billion in aid for Sudan and the surrounding region, about half of the estimated needs for a deepening humanitarian crisis that has driven some 2.2 million people from their homes. The conflict between Sudan's army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has turned the capital Khartoum into a war zone and triggered lethal, repeated attacks and mass displacement in the western region of Darfur as well as other parts of the country. Though a 72-hour ceasefire has brought a lull in fighting in Khartoum since…

Jun

21

2023

By The African Mirror

Tunisians struggle to buy sheep for Eid as economic crisis bites

NEWS

JIHED ABIDELLAOUI TUNISIANS hoping to buy a sheep to slaughter for Islam's Eid al-Adha festival next week are facing much higher prices because of a drought, adding to public anxiety at an economic crisis that looks set to worsen. Small flocks of sheep are a common sight in Tunisian cities and towns in the run-up to the annual festival, feeding on highway verges and in empty lots as farmers bring in their animals from the countryside for sale. But the bleating that echoes across city neighbourhoods as families fatten animals on rooftops or in gardens may be heard less frequently this…

Jun

22

2023

By The African Mirror

Rwandan genocide accused abandons South African bail, seeks asylum

NEWS

FORMER Rwandan police officer Fulgence Kayishema, accused of participating in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, has abandoned his application for bail and applied for political asylum in South Africa, prosecuting authorities and his lawyer said on Tuesday. Arrested last month under a false name on a grape farm outside Cape Town, Kayishema has been on the run since 2001, when the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) indicted him for genocide. He stands accused of ordering the death of 2,000 people seeking refuge in a church. He has denied any involvement in violence during the genocide but has said he was "sorry"…

Jun

22

2023

By The African Mirror

Uganda student massacre: parents submit DNA samples

NEWS

PARENTS of students missing after an attack on a school in western Uganda are flocking to the local police station to submit DNA samples that could identify their children among the 42 bodies that have been recovered. One of Uganda's biggest massacres in recent decades occurred Friday night at Lhubirira Secondary School. Assailants set a dormitory full of boys alight, then attacked a dormitory full of girls, hacking victims to death with machetes and knives. Six students were also abducted by the attackers, who the authorities say were fighters from an Islamic State-affiliated group based across the border in the eastern…

Jun

21

2023

By The African Mirror

36 dead in violence in Somalia’s Puntland and Lower Shabelle regions

NEWS

AT least 36 people died in violence across Somalia that involved heavy fighting in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland and bomb explosions in the country's Lower Shabelle region, witnesses said. In Puntland, heavy fighting broke out early Tuesday in the state capital Garowe as the local parliament debated changes to the voting system. At least 26 people died in that fighting and 16 of those were soldiers, while 30 others were injured, Dr Abdirsak Ahmed, who works at Garowe Public Hospital where some of the bodies were taken, told Reuters. Three other witnesses described heavy fighting that erupted after opposition…

Jun

21

2023

By The African Mirror

Nigeria sets eight-week timeline to agree minimum wage with unions

NEWS

CAMILLUS EBOH NIGERIA'S main labour unions and the government set an eight-week timeline to finalise an agreement to raise the minimum wage to help cushion the impact of high fuel prices after the removal of a popular but costly petrol subsidy. The Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) had threatened to strike after fuel prices tripled following President Bola Tinubu's decision to scrap the subsidy. Talks with the unions are one of the first challenges the new administration faces as it pushes forward with a raft of economic reforms. The parties agreed to set up work groups whose terms…

Jun

20

2023

By The African Mirror

Russia to stay in touch with African peace mission, some ideas workable – Kremlin

NEWS

THE Kremlin said that Russia would continue to talk to a group of African countries seeking to mediate in the conflict with Ukraine, notably at a Russia-Africa summit next month, and that some of their ideas were workable. President Vladimir Putin on Saturday gave the seven-country African delegation that had come to see him in St Petersburg a list of reasons why he believed many of their proposals were misguided, pouring cold water on a plan already largely dismissed by Kyiv. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that talks with the delegation would continue nonetheless as some of its suggestions…

Jun

20

2023

By The African Mirror

Uganda detains 20 rebel ‘collaborators’ after student massacre

NEWS

UGANDAN authorities said 20 people had been detained for questioning about their possible role in the massacre of 42 people, mostly students, by the Islamist group Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). "At least 20 suspected ADF collaborators have been arrested, to assist with our investigations," the country's police force said in a statement. Those detained, police said, included the school's headteacher. A group of fighters from the Islamic State-linked rebels stormed the Lhubirira Secondary School in Mpondwe, a town on Uganda's border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, at around 11:30 p.m. on Friday. They torched one dormitory that housed boys…

Jun

20

2023

By CONRAD ONYANGO, BIRD STORY AGENCY

Investors train eyes on African youth with gaming campuses

NEWS, E-SPORTS

IN early June, Maliyo, a game studio in Nigeria began training its pioneer class of 27 participants, drawn from the West African country as well as Kenya, Cameroon and South Africa, while this July, Microsoft is scheduled to run a 2-day virtual gaming camp that will take place across four African cities: Cairo, Lagos, Nairobi, and Johannesburg. Also lining up in a growing list of gaming academies and short-term learning experience camps springing up on the continent is ‘Level up Africa’ with a planned student intake in early 2024. Organisers of all these virtual and onsite programs -lasting from two…